Zeugma

Who gives a fuck about the Oxford Comma?

A whole bus of grammarians definitely care about this grammatical separator. Journalists, select writers, and apparently this librarian also fancy this tiny little squiggle. I spend my free time reading blogs like the Lexicographer's Rules, reading the Oxford English Dictionary for fun, and reading about grammar in the Facebook group, "Good Grammar is Hot." I'm beginning to question my choice of graduate programs. Perhaps I would have been better served getting a degree in linguistics. Oh well.

The Sporadic Word of today comes to us from an article that was mentioned on the aforementioned Lexicographer's Rules all about Vampire Weekend and their musically driven debate about the Oxford Comma. I highly recommend the article, because it is exquisitely hilarious. This is my favorite quote, by far:

Peter Devine, Vanity Fair’s copy chief, also cops to giving a “modest-size fuck about the Oxford comma. There are times when it adds a bit of clarity.”

A modest-sized fuck (chuckles). Oh silly grammarians, how I love thee. But I didn't bring all of this up to talk about the Oxford Comma. Nope, I wanted to talk about zeugma (hence the title). I saw this in the article and ::gasp:: discovered an aspect of grammar I was unfamiliar with. Clearly I needed to get the librarian out of hiding and search for this interesting word. Normally the OED would serve me well for a purpose like this, but grammar isn't something I play around with (unless, you know, I'm writing poetry). So instead I traveled to Wikipedia and was delighted to have a vast array of distinct things to learn! To avoid making this post longer than I've already made it, I'd suggest checking out the Wikipedia entry if you are interested. Oh come on, I know you are!